OCEAN HERMIT.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 June 1921, Page 10

OCEAN HERMIT.

STRANGE PACIFIC TRAPER. MAKES £2OOO A YEAR.,

i Sydney, April 20. There is a man in the South »Seas who lives by himself on a fondly coral atoll, 300 miles from the next white man, and he makes £2OOO a year. The average man hearing such a statement would await explanations, and Major C. AV. Collinson, who arrived by t'he Morea, en route to his Solomon Islands plantations, was able to furnish further particulars. “His name,” he said, “is Captain H. A. Markham, and I spent two months with him recently on his tiny coral atoll, whe/e very, very few white men have ever been. The group is called Ong Tong Java. The natives are absolutely untouched by outside contact—■there are not even missionaries there. They are as happy as the day is long. Captain Markham has got only about 24 square feet to himself on his little atoll, and the natives won’t give him any more. Neither will they let any other white man in.”

“Yes, yes; but how the deuce does he make £2OOO a year?” “That is quite simple,” said Major Collinson. “He has a 15-ton schooner, with an auxiliary motor, and comes in to meet the Sydney boat at the Solomons every two months.” “Yes, but he would scarcely get so much, a year for doing that.” “Oh, no, not at all,” replied the major, unperturbed. “The fact is, he fills his schooner with all kinds of trinkets, from Jews’ har.ps to whatnots, and takes them back to the natives.”

“And they give him £2OOO a year foi that?”

"No, no; it’s not that way —at least not exactly. He gets cocoanuts and trochas pearl shell for the trinkets, and loads these back to meet the Sydney boat next trip. The copra and pearl shell net him roughly £2OOO a year.”

Major Collinson thus revealed the secret of the mysterious captain’s wealth, but he did not say what means this worthy Pacific middleman found to spend his “easy money.”

Jack London and a few others are said to have visited the lonely trader, and one friend suggested to an American paper that people should wirte to him. He received eight bags of letters by the next boat; Major Collinson owns four of the islands of the Solomon Group, on which he has plantations. There is a chance for any white man with £2OOO or £3OOO capital to get good copra land there, he says. The. native. Iwbor is the only really costly factor. Capra, however, has recently fallen heavily in price, but it gives an extract which forms’ the basis for soap, margarine, lubricating oil for airplanes, and cattle cake. S&n Francisco is becoming a sharp competitor with' Sydney as a copra market. The British Solomons are 'directed from Downing Street, and the governing powers are very ill-defined.

“The administration under the mandate of the late German Solomons by Australia has been bad,” said Major Collinson, “due to sending young men up there who did not know how to govern the natives. Perhaps with a civil administration it will be better.”